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Ohio has one of the nation’s highest costs for interstate calls to and from its prisons: A
15-minute call costs $17.14 — a price that most often is paid by inmates’ family members.

There are other fees, too: $3.50 for a completed collect call, $4.95 for a $25 prepaid calling
card and $2.99 per month to include a cellphone on an inmate’s list of permissible outsider
calls.

Although there isn’t much sympathy for inmates, it can be a heavy financial burden for the
families, according to members of CURE Ohio, a prisoner-advocacy organization.

Ohio’s price for the 15-minute interstate call is exceeded nationwide only by the price in
Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia, all of which charge 16 cents more. The state also extracts the
largest commission in the nation — $15 million a year — from its phone-service supplier, Global
Tel*Link.

Ohio is cited prominently in a case pending with the Federal Communications Commission in
Washington as an example of a “revenue profit-sharing scheme, with the prisons on one side and the
telephone companies on the other,” said Lee Petro, a Washington attorney who took over the case
about five years ago. It was filed in 2000 as a class-action lawsuit but ended up with the FCC,
which regulates phone service.

Petro said the costs amount to “an imposition on the families that is unjust and unreasonable.
Generally speaking, it falls on the people who can least afford it.”

Petro’s latest filing asks the FCC to cap rates at 7 cents per call without setup or other fees.
Petro said that is 2 cents per call higher than the actual cost of providing the service.

JoEllen Smith of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said the state’s contract
with Global Tel*Link in 2010 provides $15 million annually for the agency. Some of that money pays
for 86 education employees and 37 recovery-services employees. Also, $2 million of it goes for job
training, and $2 million for inmate pay.

“DRC has implemented other unique approaches to achieve positive family contact, such as video
visitation and the email system,” she said. “The money from the inmate phone program goes directly
to support offender programming efforts.”

Chris Gickler of Global Tel*Link in Ohio did not respond to a call seeking comment.

Petro said Ohio and other states could save money in the long run by acting to reduce phone
rates, thereby encouraging inmates to remain in contact with their families. He said that is a
major factor in reducing recidivism — the rate at which ex-offenders return to prison.

Smith said Ohio’s recidivism rate of 28.7 percent is among the lowest in the nation.